Wicked Fantasy: Gnolls: For the Pack

This wretched, disease-carrying creature is the result of the mating of a gnome and a troll. Its skin is infected with fungus and its hair is always matted, thick with its own filth.

It is a cowardly, carrion creature that feeds on the kills of others. Its heart is devoid of heroism, preferring to attack lone individuals in groups, using superior numbers to compensate for its weaknesses. Their deformity—with short legs and long arms—is an outward indication of inner corruption.

These scavenging disease-bringers deserve nothing more than our complete contempt. I hereby advise His Highness that if his guards come across these worthless things that they be killed, then burned to prevent the spread of their foulness.

—Alvador Stime, High Scholar for the King of Men, Edward Dunzny

* * *

They are not the result of the mating of a gnome and a troll. Anyone who looks at one could figure that out in five seconds. They look nothing like trolls nor do they bear any resemblance to gnomes. A gnoll looks more like a hyena standing upright.

And gnolls do not call themselves gnolls. That word was invented by the aforementioned scholar and stuck in the human language ever since. “Gnolls” call themselves the dach’youn. It means, “we the trodden.” (The less formal name is dach.) The name does give them a sense of self-awareness, but not as one might think. It is not a title of self-pity, but only a realistic understanding of their place in the world.

Wicked Fantasy began as a series of articles in Kobold Quarterly Magazine reinventing the "standard races" in fantasy roleplaying. Now, those same articles have been expanded and revised (five times theiroriginal size!) and fit with the PATHFINDER Roleplaying Game.

The fourth in the series--For the Pack--tackles one of the most misunderstood races in all of fantasy literature: gnolls.

Disregarded as simple pack animals, the dach'youn have long been seen as simple pack animals, but there is so much more to their culture than men suspect. In fact, gnolls know secrets men may never discover.

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